Storing a binary hash value in a Django model field
binary-data, django, django-models, encoding, python
Solution
I'm assuming if you were writing raw SQL you'd be using a Postgres bytea or a MySQL VARBINARY. There's a ticket with a patch (marked "needs testing") that purportedly makes a field like this (Ticket 2417: Support for binary type fields (aka: bytea in postgres and VARBINARY in mysql)).
Otherwise, you could probably try your hand at writing a custom field type.
Problem
I have a twenty byte hex hash that I would like to store in a django model. If I use a text field, it's interpreted as unicode and it comes back garbled. Currently I'm encoding it and decoding it, which really clutters up the code, because I have to be able to filter by it. ``` def get_changeset(self): return bin(self._changeset) def set_changeset(self, value): self._changeset = hex(value) changeset = property(get_changeset, set_changeset) ``` Here's an example for filtering ``` Change.objects.get(_changeset=hex(ctx.node())) ``` This is the approach that was recommended by a django developer, but I'm really struggling to come to terms with the fact that it's this ugly to just store twenty bytes. Maybe I'm too much of a purist, but ideally I would be able to write ``` Change.objects.get(changeset=ctx.node()) ``` The properties allow me to write: ``` change.changeset = ctx.node() ``` So that's as good as I can ask.